What a sad day for Canadian politics! All day today, millions of us were entranced by the epic beginning of the struggle against Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s draconian Budget Bill C-38. In the meantime, the Conservatives used their majority advantage in the House of Commons to pass Immigration minister Jason Kenney‘s backward-looking legislation, Bill C-31. The Immigration and Refugee Protection Act cleared the Commons by a 159-132 vote.

After the vote, the NDP’s immigration and citizenship critic Jinny Sims said on Twitter: “This is taking Canada in the wrong direction.”